2 comments:

I wonder who Frost would have voted for? Was he a live long democrat? Reading Mending Wall you'd think so, but I find that sometimes he wrote his best poems defending position he didn't believe.

Home Burial for example seems to give heart and voice to the mourning mother but Frost is the man in the poem who looks at the grave and sees nothing but the work that has gone into digging. At least that's how I see it.

I don't believe he ever statedany affiliation, however, I know he read a poem at Kennedy's 1961 inauguration. He wrote a poem, but was in his 80s, with poor eyesight and didn't feel comfortable reading the long, new poem he had prepared...here is what he did not read:Written in commemoration of John F. Kennedy's 1961 Inauguration

Dedication - The Complete Text

Summoning artists to participateIn the august occasions of the stateSeems something artists ought to celebrate.Today is for my cause a day of days.And his be poetry's old-fashioned praiseWho was the first to think of such a thing.This verse that in acknowledgement I bringGoes back to the beginning of the endOf what had been for centuries the trend;A turning point in modern history.Colonial had been the thing to beAs long as the great issue was to seeWhat country'd be the one to dominateBy character, by tongue, by native trait,The new world Christopher Columbus found.The French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were downedAnd counted out. Heroic deeds were done.Elizabeth the First and England won.Now came on a new order of the agesThat in the Latin of our founding sages(Is it not written on the dollar billWe carry in our purse and pocket still?)God nodded his approval of as good.So much those heroes knew and understood,I mean the great four, Washington,John Adams, Jefferson, and MadisonSo much they saw as consecrated seersThey must have seen ahead what not appears,They would bring empires down about our earsAnd by the example of our DeclarationMake everybody want to be a nation.And this is no aristocratic jokeAt the expense of negligible folk.We see how seriously the races swarmIn their attempts at sovereignty and form.They are our wards we think to some extentFor the time being and with their consent,To teach them how Democracy is meant."New order of the ages" did they say?If it looks none too orderly today,'Tis a confusion it was ours to startSo in it have to take courageous part.No one of honest feeling would approveA ruler who pretended not to loveA turbulence he had the better of.Everyone knows the glory of the twainWho gave America the aeroplaneTo ride the whirlwind and the hurricane.Some poor fool has been saying in his heartGlory is out of date in life and art.Our venture in revolution and outlawryHas justified itself in freedom's storyRight down to now in glory upon glory.Come fresh from an election like the last,The greatest vote a people ever cast,So close yet sure to be abided by,It is no miracle our mood is high.Courage is in the air in bracing whiffsBetter than all the stalemate an's and ifs.There was the book of profile tales declaringFor the emboldened politicians daringTo break with followers when in the wrong,A healthy independence of the throng,A democratic form of right devineTo rule first answerable to high design.There is a call to life a little sterner,And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.Less criticism of the field and courtAnd more preoccupation with the sport.It makes the prophet in us all presageThe glory of a next Augustan ageOf a power leading from its strength and pride,Of young amibition eager to be tried,Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,In any game the nations want to play.A golden age of poetry and powerOf which this noonday's the beginning hour.

Things to Share

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